Does chamber music scare you? Remind you of a cat screeching? Those were my thoughts until I gave a closer listen. Turns out, it’s an exhilarating experience you need to have!!

The Hamilton Trio, was founded in 1986, by Louise Fenn (flute, voice & keyboard), Elizabeth Kellogg (cello) and John D. Howard (violin, viola, arranger and leader). Their biographies attest to a wide-range of experience as orchestral and chamber musicians. The Trio has been honored by repeat performances for many families, organizations, concert series, and has received honors such as a favorite in Leesburg Today’s annual ‘Best of Everything’ (Performing Arts) poll and a nominee for the Governor’s “Excellence in the Arts” Awards.

Got a party coming up? Graduation? Father’s Day? Wedding? Gatherings such as birthdays, anniversaries, holiday parties, dinners, hunt and dressage events, dedications, Church programs, commemorations, and office parties is a sampling of the trio’s artistry hallmark. The Trio is versatile (sorry, not jazzy!): When the trio receives a spontaneous request, like the Yale Fight Song (as at one wedding reception years ago), Louise can almost always play it from memory.

The repertory of the Hamilton Trio is expansive, covering music from “really old” (but “for the ages”) composers of the baroque, classical, and romantic periods to new pieces–rarities–from the neglected American classical period. John Howard, violinist, prepares special songs when requested and arranges lighter fare, such as broadway tunes by Gershwin and Cole Porter; ethnic–Irish, Swedish, Jewish, English, Italian, German, Spirituals; American fiddle; Stephen Foster, Civil War; waltzes and other music for the dance. And there’s always those works whose beauty endures like Pachelbel’s Canon, Handel’s Fireworks and Water Music, Haydn’s Trios, Wagner and Mendelssohn’s wedding marches, Mozart’s Romanza, Chopin’s Waltz in a, Dvorak’s Humoresque, and Minuets in G of Beethoven and Paderewski, to name a few.

A member of the trio with a rare distinction (in addition to her musicianship!) is Betty (Elizabeth), who is now a 50-year survivor of type I diabetes. This June she will be the first speaker at an annual event at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston in celebration of such survivors, at which she will discuss in detail her very rigorous life with respect to diet and monitoring of herself.

The Poodle? Turns out, as the Hamilton Trio was playing for a Wedding, the bride took too long and a poodle decided to come down the aisle!

You deserve a treat–go hear them in concert or have them play at your next event – to learn more about them or to book them, please visit: www.classicaltrio.com.